SuperJumbo from space

[pipme]

A380 behind A340 viewed from sat' 450 Km above.

A little manipulation shows ... Le Bourget may have a few chamfers and radii applied .. If 380 gonna have free rein (which I am sure it is not)..

I suppose the yanks will now shove a brick or two in the old works by lobbing a few new buildings conveniently close to the old taxiways over their side of pond.

 

[AdamW]

When I saw the original image (below), without the A380 butted up to the A340, I was surprised at the similarity in length. This is the A380-800, which is "only" 72.8m long, the A380-900 will be 80m long. I looked it up, and the A340-600 is 75m long, presumably this is the one in the picture. IIRC, the maximum allowable length for an airliner is 84m.

Wingspan of the 747-400 is 64.4m, tail height is 19.4m. The A380-800 (the one in the picture) dimensions are 79.8m and 24.1m respectively. So yes, they could put width and height restrictions on the service hangers perhaps... I'm sure this won't happen though, seeing as so many airlines have bought the A380, it would result in outrage. Of course, it falls within the dimensional constraints of the IAA so it will fit on runways and taxiways.

Perhaps instead of wing-walkers we will now have wing-ramblers and wing-distance-runners?

I have read rantish posts on forums from presumed Boeing fans who reckon the A380 is too big, and airports won't be upgraded and so forth.

I prefer Boeing's website though, the Airbus one is c**p. Boeing give you all kinds of information including the price. Anyone want a 717 for $38M, or a top spec 777-300ER for $245.5M?

 

[Freddie]

But the point is the US is under no obligation to let ant new type of plane land anywhere on its soil, they have a perfect right to do that same as any other country, perhaps thats why they dont seem the slightest bit bothered by the new plane.

What can anybody do if they say no, restrict jumbo's in the same way??? that would stop maybe most of the flights in the world, and being as the aiorports are independant of the carriers you cant really have a tit for tat battle can you ????

 

[AdamW]

Well, it is up to the airports to upgrade for the A380, extra air-bridges for instance. T5 is being built ready for the A380.

Important hub airports in the US will have to upgrade where necessary. No law saying they must, but they are under great pressure from the airlines and it is the airlines that pay the bills.

Runways for 747 are already suitable for A380.

One possible use of A380 that we came up with yesterday involves the Islamic rite of Haj. In Saudi they use high-density 747s to ship the pilgrims about. With an A380 they can get almost 50% more people on a plane. Unbelievably, it is actually economical to use a huge airliner for such a short-haul journey. Another big use will be flights to Asia: there are a lot of asian people in the UK who visit their motherlands on a regular basis. I'm not sure how many people fly between Heathrow and India every day, but I'm pretty sure that A380s will make it more economical.

JFK, Atlanta and so forth will probably be capable of handling A380s, there is no need for smaller local airports to handle them.

 

[pipme]

Keep your eyes peeled gents major weight problems with A380 - allegedly indenting the runway on landing.. wonder if they've grossed her up to top weight yet ? Maybe the fun is yet to come !!

 

[Scoby_Beasley]

I'm sure I once heard that a jumbo can leave the ground at 60m.p.h. . Any plane spotters confirm or deny this ? If true, why when I'm doing 85 ( sorry, 69 ) m.p.h. on the M/way and me and SWMBO stick our arms out the window and flap like crazy, why can't we fly over the traffic jams ??

 

[AdamW]

Not sure what the take-off airspeed is for a 747, but if the minimum was 100mph, and you have a 30mph headwind, you could do it at 70mph relative to the ground.

To be honest, it is probably nearer 140-150. Hence that delicious shove in the back you get as they wind up the hairdriers.

Ground pressure of a plane's gear is generally more important than total mass of the plane. And I have read that the maximum ground pressure of any tyre on the landing gear is greater on the 747 than on the A380. However, the average ground pressure of all the tyres is considerably greater on the A380.

If you look at the A380's landing gear, you have 22 tyres carrying the plane on the ground (2 under the nose, 12 under the wing box, 8 under the wings). 747 has 18 (16 main, 2 nose). As a comparison, the considerably-heavier, designed to land on unmade-runways, Antonov-225 has a 32-wheel gear This is largely because it is a huminatarian transport thus needs to land on runways that are no good for a typical airliner, hence all the wheels to spread the load.

If you can fly the Antonov-225 (there is only one!) into an airport then you can fly an A380 And they do fly the fully-laden 225 in and out of Heathrow, all 600 tonnes of it.

I'm sure they wouldn't have designed the A380 without checking it could actually be used first! I hope, anyway!

 

[pipme]

http://www.flightinternational.com/Articles/2005/05/31/198607/The+light++stuff+fantastic.html[/url]]....Lack of standards
Some efforts are being made to minimise the effect of this lack of standardisation. One, known as the Military Standard 17 Group, is a consortium of industry and government representatives involved in composites testing. "Their goal is to develop a handbook for structural applications of composite materials," says LaMantea. The AGATE (Advanced General Aviation Transport Experiments) public/private partnership, set up in 1995, also had developing standards for composites fabrication and repair among its aims......
"In the final analysis, it's a matter of training and having the right people available," says LaMantea. "At the same time, as composites are used to a greater extent on transport aircraft, problems will arise for which there are no solutions in place now. It's a little hard to solve many of the problems until they actually occur."......

"Lack of .." ... Those two words tend to inspire negative comfort..

I guess this is where AB are at .. Trying to inspire equipment suppliers to make the 'weight' with their components. .. Hopefully they will get there.
Extra Options = Weight = fuel consumption = Problems = Time delay

BTW early A380 orders have a 'no cost' cancellation benefit to disallusioned Airlines up to 12 months before delivery. .. Apparently the Boeing sales mob are baying at the airlines' doors, wedges (of all kinds) in hand... Blimey .. BOGOF on 747-400's next !!

 

[andy]

I'm sure I once heard that a jumbo can leave the ground at 60m.p.h. .

is that air or ground speed? as already mentoioned, air going again will give a lower ground speed and greater lift so it can take off. once above a certain speed during takeoff, (different for each plane) it must take off. even if an engine fails. mainly since at that speed it wont be able to stop before the end of the runway.

and as for the weight making an indentation of the runway.... must of hit ground hard... AFAIK, runways are made from 1.5M thick reinforced concrete!

 

[pipme]

I'm sure I once heard that a jumbo can leave the ground at 60m.p.h. .

is that air or ground speed? as already mentoioned, air going again will give a lower ground speed and greater lift so it can take off. once above a certain speed during takeoff, (different for each plane) it must take off. even if an engine fails. mainly since at that speed it wont be able to stop before the end of the runway.

and as for the weight making an indentation of the runway.... must of hit ground hard... AFAIK, runways are made from 1.5M thick reinforced concrete!

Indents - joke - only one has ever landed - so far !!

Width may well be a problem, the outer engine is several Metres further from aircraft centre line than the Dumbo .. So the runway edges become more important with relation to, as just one example, engine potential Foreign Object Damage.
Running off the taxi or runway - always a problem - I guess twill be anightmare with the A380.
Looking good, at times tho' .....

 

[AdamW]

Landing into a headwind with a glider or microlight can be fun, stall speed is approximately naff all, so there are occasions when headwind=stall speed and you can actually make a vertical landing!

 

[kendor]

if you have a spare £54M you could own this:
http://images.google.co.uk/imgres?i...=19&prev=/images?q=antonov+225&hl=en&lr=&sa=N

 

[AdamW]

as just one example, engine potential Foreign Object Damage.

You could be right... the Trents are British, but they are being bolted on by foreigners with foreign objects (namely foreign spanners)... they can't engineer like we Brits, there's bound to be some damage to these engines from these foreign objects

And being the stop-out lotharios that they are stereotyped as, their wives might get upset and put down tools, such as cooking utensils and irons... that would be a bird strike...

Is great though, arguably the two most important bits, the wings and the engines, the bits that turn it from an unpowered cigar tube on wheels into a 600mph aeroplane, are British.